Although Ellis Faas Makeup has been available in the UK for some time now, I think it gets overlooked very often. I recently met with Ellis for a catch up and a reminder of the brand, and ended up trying stuff I’ve never tried before, such as the Skin Veil Foundation.
All the Ellis Faas products come in these silver bullet tubes.. I must admit, it drives me crazy. Although Ellis has developed a kind of clip-together system, it’s not particularly consumer friendly. All the bullets look alike, so there’s no separation between eyes, lips and cheeks and the only indication of the colours is a little window at the bottom. If you only have one or two products, all is fine, but as you up the numbers, you up the confusion.
However, the over-rider here is that Ellis has an eye for colour tone that other brands can only dream of. She’s famous for her ‘human tones’ and presenting colours that are present already on the human body, whether in a naturally rosy cheek or a purple bruise, and because they’re human compatible colours, they’re pretty awesome!
The selection above gives you a good idea. Texturally, she has all bases covered – for example, lips fall into four categories – Creamy Lips, Milky Lips, Glazed Lips or Hot Lips to indicate the finish. I have tried today both the Skin Veil Foundation (available both in a pen and a bottle) which is excellent coverage with a slight skin sheen, and the blush which I am immediately in love with. It’s completely a natural fit to my tone. In the swatch above, from bottom to top: Ellis Eyes Lights in E301, Creamy Eyes in E105, Hot Lips in L201 and Blush in S302.
The problem with being too different in the beauty market is that you are easily misunderstood; you sort of have to make it easy for people to buy your product because competition is so strong now. I don’t think this brand makes it easy at all, and although everything about it is absolutely beautiful, if you make the consumer work too hard, they go elsewhere. I think it’s time for a repackage where you can see product properly, time to let go of the clip together system because it’s irrelevant for today’s flighty consumer that mixes and matches between ranges, and time to realise that most beauty lovers don’t think like make up artists; they think like beauty lovers!
If you’re new to the Ellis Faas Makeup range, I’d highly recommend the Blush (£22) and the Milky Lips (£23) that are an absolute joy.
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